Romans 7.15-25a,

6^th Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 9] | 9 July 2023 | Rom 7.15-25a, Mt 11.16-19, 25-30 | Richard O. Johnson |

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7.15-25a NRSV)

Jesus said to the crowd, “To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30 (NRSV)

To hear some people talk about the Bible, you’d think it was the most difficult book in the world. How often I’ve heard people say, “I’d really like to study the Bible, but I just can’t make any sense of it.” If you ask them exactly what they have trouble understanding, they usually mention some terribly obscure part of the prophet Zephaniah or the visions of Ezekiel or Revelation! The great Danish theologian Kierkegaard had a stock answer to people who complained about the difficulty of the Bible. “You may not understand it all,” he said, “but surely you can find one book you can understand. And if not a book, then a chapter; and if not a chapter, then a verse. And if you can’t understand any of the verses, surely you can find one word you can understand in the Bible. When you find that one word, concentrate on living your life according to that word; then, when you have mastered that, you may find yourself ready to understand something else.”

The thing about the Bible, you see, is that it is written on many different levels, with many different readers and times and situations in mind. The important thing for us Christians is to learn how the Scriptures speak to our own particular situation, to our own lives. Jesus said that the wisdom of God is hidden from those who are too smart to see it, but that it is revealed to those who are simple, who humbly open themselves to his Word, to those who receive as freely and as openly as children. Our first task in studying the Bible is therefore not to try to solve all the deep theological questions, but to look simply for the words that address us directly, in our particular situation.

Standing before God

I don’t suppose there is any text in Scripture that speaks more directly and clearly to us than our second lesson this morning. Here at the end of Romans 7, Paul states, in very clear and simple language, the way that we are as we stand before God. I would have to say that this passage from Romans, beginning with today’s lesson and continuing into chapter 8, is probably among the top ten in terms of influence on my life. I discovered it at one of the most difficult times of my life, and these words have sustained me often, and reminded me of God’s incredible love for me at the times I have wandered farthest from his care. I read these words, and I simply have to say, “Yes, this is how I am, and this is how God has dealt with me.”

Paul’s letter to the Romans is in many ways a very difficult book. It is, in its opening chapters, a detailed and closely reasoned treatise on the Jewish law, on the history of God’s dealings with the Jewish people, and on the place of Jesus Christ in that history. But in the seventh chapter, Paul suddenly becomes very personal and talks about himself, about his own spiritual experience. He has been talking about the Law, and how it shows us how to live, how it shows us what God wants us to be and do. Paul says that he loves the Law of God. Indeed, he wants more than anything else to live according to it.

But then he makes a startling admission. He says that, as much as he wants to do right, he finds himself, over and over again, doing things that he knows are wrong. And he doesn’t know why! Let me paraphrase him: “I don’t understand myself!” he says. “I don’t do what I’d like to do, but instead I do the things that I hate. . . . Even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it. I don’t do the good I want to do; instead, I do the evil that I don’t want to do. Even when I want to do what is right, evil is close at hand.”

Strong words from Paul! But what I want to admit to you is that that’s the way it is with me. And I know enough of human nature to suspect that it’s that way with you, too. All of us know pretty much how we ought to live, and all of us know, deep in our hearts, that we don’t live that way much of the time.

Lurking at the door

And it has always been so with human beings. I’ve never found a Biblical commentary that says this, but I’ve always thought that when Paul says, “When I want to do good, evil is close at hand” he is thinking about the Genesis story of Cain and Abel. In that story Cain wants his sacrifice to be accepted by God, and when it isn’t, he becomes angry at his brother. God warns him that “sin is lurking at your door.” That’s really what Paul is saying here: evil, sin, the inclination to do what is wrong—it’s always there lurking within us, ready to spring into action at any moment.

I read recently about a man who realized that he was addicted to ice cream. Every night, after everyone else in the house was asleep, he would sneak out of bed, go down to the kitchen and make himself a huge, gooey ice cream sundae. He realized that he had a problem—his bathroom scale reminded him of it every morning. But he just couldn’t stop. He finally put a chain and padlock on the freezer and gave the only key to his wife. That night she was awakened to the sound of rattling chains and muttering in the kitchen, and when she went down in the morning she found what appeared to be claw marks on the freezer door!

Well, he may have solved his problem at least temporarily, but those of us who have struggled with sin in its many forms know that even a chained and locked freezer is not going to do the trick. We are, as we so often admit, in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.

The point of utter despair

But it is just when you come with Paul to the point of utter frustration and despair—when you have struggled and agonized, when you have made resolutions and fought to keep them, all unsuccessfully; when you have realized that indeed, sin does have the upper hand in you, and you cannot defeat it—it is just at that point that the clear, gentle voice of Jesus Christ breaks through to us in all its simplicity: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  Words of promise that are very kind when you think of someone else’s burdens; but words that touch your very soul when you realize they are spoken to you! Words that are irresistible when you suddenly see, for the first time, that the burdens are yours that he offers to relieve. Words that could move Paul, just when he seems ready to give up, to write, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

It is just at that moment of despair that our hearts too, are quickened by those gracious words. We are ready to give up, ready to think it’s always going to be this way and there is no hope for us. And then Jesus says to us—to us!: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

But the Bible is hard! No sooner does he lift the burden from us than he gives us another to bear. “Take my yoke upon you,” he says, “and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Whatever can that mean? What is that yoke he lays upon us?

My yoke is easy

I once thought of this yoke as the burden that Christ gives us when we have come to him, that the yoke is laid upon our shoulders and Christ is the driver. But in recent years I’ve seen it differently. I realized that in the Bible, the word “yoke” never refers to the harness of a single animal. A yoke is always a device for yoking two animals together in order to make them a more powerful team. When Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you,” he means that we are called to be yoked with him, to share his yoke, to do his task and bear his burden. But we don’t do that alone, you see—we do it in concert with Jesus himself. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” By joining ourselves to him, by working alongside him, we learn his way, the way of gentleness and humility. And that is when we are rescued from the power of sin.

Next Sunday we will hear the next section of Romans, and I want to continue to follow Paul’s line of thought to its conclusion. I think that chapter 8 of Romans is one of the most profound and important chapters in the entire Bible, telling us what life is like once we see and acknowledge our sinfulness. So reflect this week, if you will, on today’s text from Romans 7. Think about how it mirrors your own life, your own experience. Where is it in your life that you struggle and often fail to do what is right? Where is it that you need, that you long for, the help of Jesus? Where is it that you hunger to hear those words: “Come to me; I will give you rest?” And then be ready next week for the good news of chapter 8.

Pastor Richard O. Johnson

Webster, NY

roj@nccn.net